Articles posted in 'Quantified Self'

I have a real interest in collecting data, about ourselves, and our environment, in order to better understand the context in which we operate. I think that collecting data, and analysing it, gives us some real insights into our behaviour. It allows us to experiment with making changes, and objectively observing how those changes affect us. These articles explore that whole topic in various ways.

I made a discovery this morning: as a regular user, not a ninja iOS app developer, you can export all your data from HealthKit! I have to confess I hadn't specifically looked into it, but I had assumed that all my data was kinda locked up in my phone (and in encrypted backups on iTunes) and that the only way to get access to it was to give particular apps specific permissions to access the data. In short, I assumed I was going to have to fire up Xcode one day and write a wee app to trawl my data and extract it[^1]. Read more…

I use an awful lot of apps and services in my everyday life. More than most, I suspect, because I'm really into tracking what I do, and leaving an electronic breadcrumb trail behind me as I go. I tend to try and externalise the contents of my brain — mostly because if I kept it all in there, I'd explode! — which invariably winds up with lots of notes being written inside various apps. I've also taken to digitising as much of my life as possible, too. Having spent the past couple of years without a place I could really call home (which I've fixed now — yay!), it's been much easier to live life without having to cart around dead trees and bits of plastic. All my data is safely (well, relatively) contained in the aluminium shell of my laptop, and synchronised seamlessly into The Cloud. Read more…